


For You, Phil, the World

by lucradiss



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dadza, Hurt/Comfort, Sad Dave | Technoblade, post-exile dsmp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:01:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27934279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucradiss/pseuds/lucradiss
Summary: Techno is Not Having a Good Time in his self-made exile. It takes his father showing up for him to realize that, though.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Phil Watson, Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 441





	For You, Phil, the World

Technoblade was many things. A warrior, first and foremost. A survivalist, taught to him by his father. A soldier, an anarchist, a king who'd fallen so far from grace that his own sword had more claim to his former throne than he. He was a brother and he was a son, a protector and a guardian, a teacher and a student alike. But despite all this, one thing he knew he shouldn't have been was alive.   
As he trudged through the snow toward a horde of zombies, he mused at how alike he was to them. Just quite alive enough to be walking but far too dead to consider stopping. He supposed the only difference between them and him was the brain, rotting and dripping from their greyish, greenish ears like goo. He wasn't quite there yet.

The cold seeped through his bones and chilled him, more merciless than he could ever presume to be. He suppressed a shiver as the zombies noticed him and began to groan their way toward him, not sentient enough to realize they were limping toward a bloody fate. He unlatched his axe from his back- kingslayer had been left at home with his father, but now that nobody was there he found himself wondering if the sword enjoyed the silence as much as he always had- and the sharp blade scraped through the snow for just a moment, steam hissing its way into the starry night above. The good thing about this biome was the lack of light pollution; stars were always so much more visible in places like these.

As he made quick work of the mobs- endless, ever spawning, never cutting slack- he considered his situation. It was freezing here, which was what he was aiming for upon exiling himself, as nobody would even think to look here- other than one single person, but they wouldn't seek him out and he knew it- but he'd never felt at home amongst the snow.  
He was borne from chaos and flame, a bloody, skyless wasteland where the only life that could ever be found was the monsters who lurked between the shadows and the fire. He wondered every day if he was one of them.

He remembered his father reassuring him when he was a child; _"You're no monster. Monsters are what you call the things outside that try to kill us- you protect and you save. You've always been that way. So don't you worry, mate- you're not a monster. You're my son, Techno, and I love you."_

That was a load of bullshit and they both knew it- or at least he did, and then he almost killed Wilbur, and then his father knew it too.   
He'd steeled himself from it. Diving into his studies, his fights, his strategies, his rule. Blocking everything out until he physically couldn't stand to anymore and had to be forced to sleep or to eat or to even fucking sit down. It had been that way since he was a child- when something happened, he would shut himself out from the world until he felt okay enough to re-enter it.

He'd seen things in the Nether growing up before he was saved by Phil- things that no child should ever have had to experience. They desensitized him to the world, to blood, to pain. By the time he entered Phil's life at the age of five, he'd already been littered in too many scars to count.   
Phil and he had a general, unspoken agreement not to talk about it.

His brothers weren't like him. They never had been- his older brother Wilbur was sweet and kind and bold, always the first to jump to someone's aid be it anything other than fighting and always the first to make light of bad situations. He was musically inclined and had the sunniest grin Techno had ever seen. He missed that grin.   
Tommy was always rash and fiery and naive. He was loud and boisterous, always quick to rage but also the quickest to protect, need be. Techno lost count of how many times he'd patched the boy up in secret after he'd snuck out to go fight mobs. Phil knew about it, of course, and Techno knew this, but he didn't have the heart to tell that to his youngest brother, who was so excited to finally be independent.  
Now they were both... so different. But Techno never changed. Blood and fire never change. Techno was and would always be a monster.

He finished the zombies, picking up their rotten flesh and turning on his heel, stalking back to his house- shack? He didn't know what to really call it. It wasn't anything fancy, just a small building built with materials he'd gotten from the villagers in the town a hundred blocks or so to the North. He knew though, as the thick, heavy door creaked its way open, that this place would never be his home. His home was in the 'Sleepy Castle' as Wilbur had dubbed it all those years ago, with its winding halls and long dining tables that they never ate at, always preferring to eat outside or at a smaller table so they could interact.   
Home was his sprawling potato fields where he'd spend hours upon hours working, the sun beating down on his back and sweat beading on his skin, the warmth seeping through his body until he grew too weary, only to go back inside and get an even warmer welcome from his family, helping him relax after a long day. He'd have dinner, nearly pass out on the couch after, and be coaxed to bed a little early by his father- he couldn't ever say no to his dad. 

Home was Tommy's loud voice and his incessant cackling, now so painfully silenced without him around. His exile had taken more of a toll on Techno than he'd expected it to- not the exile, though, as much as the way Tommy seemed to tense whenever Techno spoke to him, the way he would snarl and snap and Techno when they spoke; the way his brother seemed to want nothing to do with him.   
_'He just needs something to be angry with,'_ He'd wrote once to Phil in their correspondence. Phil doesn't visit. They write letters. _'Jschlatt is dead, Wilbur doesn't remember anything, so he's got nobody to scapegoat. Then he sees me, the violent anarchist who killed his friend and partly destroyed his land, and he subconsciously decides that I'm the perpetrator of this mess. He needs someone to blame, and I was the most convenient target. He'll get over it at some point. Nothing to do but wait for him to come around.'_  
He could feel the disappointment radiating from Phil's response.

Home was Wilbur's hands, deftly tucking Techno's hair into a neat plait as they sat quietly wherever they'd chosen to settle. Techno always liked his hair braided but nobody, _nobody_ did it as well as Wilbur- not even himself. So he'd hang around his brother until the man eventually turned to him with an amused smile and asked him if he wanted his hair braided. Techno would play dumb, as if that wasn't the sole reason he'd been around in the first place, and then would supply Wilbur with a measly "I suppose."  
Wilbur would respond, "Are you sure? You don't look to convinced." And Techno would roll his eyes and agree to it, a little more wholeheartedly this time.   
Wilbur couldn't braid his hair anymore. The ghost probably didn't remember how, and those once nimble fingers would probably slip right through Techno's thick waves. When he went to visit Tommy right after the boy's exile, Wilbur seemed more ghostly than sentient, floating around, finding clay, avoiding anything that involved his past wrongdoings. Wilbur had hugged him and Techno had felt nothing, but he mimed the hug anyways.  
"You're so warm, Techno..." Wilbur had said, and Techno didn't have the heart to tell his older brother that he was getting increasingly cold in this embrace.

Home was Phil, his father, the man who took him in during his time of need, who fed and clothed him, who taught him to fight. Who could seemingly sense when Techno was having another nightmare as a child and would always come into the boy's room to soothe him and help him fall back to sleep. Who built this castle with his bare hands and hid the blisters from his sons. Who had the habit of plucking his feathers as writing utensils so much that once he admitted he wasn't able to fly correctly until they grew back in. The man who smiled at Wilbur as he and Tommy left for war, and smiled at Techno, just a little sadder than he had been before, as he set off for the same mission years later. The castle was empty. It was only him left.  
Phil wasn't the man Techno remembered him to be. Not anymore; not after what happened November 16th, when he stabbed his eldest son through the heart with the man's own sword. Upon joining, after the action died, Phil had been approached by Dream and told to clip his wings.  
"You want me to _what?_ " Phil had asked, incredulous. Techno heard him from where he was sitting on a cliff nearby.   
"Clip your wings. We do not fly here, and you are no exception, Philza."

"You can't possibly expect me to-"

"I do." 

And so clipped were the feathers of his father's beautiful deep violet wings. He wondered if the pens he used to write his letters to Techno were half of what they used to be.

He walked into the shack and took off his cloak, hanging it up on the wall and sitting on the bed. The furs and blankets felt soft as he sat and put his head in his hands, sighing. Something shining caught his eye and he turned to see his crown, taunting him upon his nightstand. He'd naught but touched the crown in these past weeks, ignoring it and hoping the shame of his past wrongdoings would just... go away if he didn't think about it. But that was easier said than done, and the crown always drew his attention more if he ignored it. Even down in his potato farm he could almost hear the voices of the people whose lives he'd stolen over the years, telling him to put it back on.  
 _"A king is not a king without his crown. You've killed so many for sake of it, so why is it you refuse to don it? You are not unworthy of its prowess, so why do you hesitate to touch it?"_

He heard those voices now, saw their eyes in the shine of the gold. He couldn't take this anymore. He picked up the crown, the weight in his hands almost as heavy as his sins, and threw open the door to his house, ignoring the freezing wind that chilled him once again. He flung it out into the snow and it landed with a puff at the feet of the one person he never expected to see. Violet wings cut haphazardly, thin coat over a green kimono, bucket hat down as he stared at the object below him, and then shining green eyes up as he looked at his son with confusion.

"Dad?" Techno asked, almost wincing at how weak his voice sounded. Hopefully his father couldn't hear him over the storm.

"Techno!" Phil yelled, thankfully stepping over the crown and jogging over to his son's house, confusion wiped away to show a kind smile. He took an envelope out of his kimono and Techno didn't miss how much the man's hands were shaking. "I thought I'd deliver my next letter in person."

\---

Techno poured tea into mismatching mugs as Phil sat at the table. Techno had started the fire to warm the place up after Phil had come in and hadn't stopped shivering after five minutes. Techno had been like that too, in the beginning, but he'd sewn himself warmth and steeled himself against the outside enough so that the trembles were nearly nonexistent. That wasn't to say, though, that his bones didn't constantly ache from the chill. 

He handed Phil a mug and his father thanked his quietly, taking a sip. Techno sat down across from him and drank his own in silence. 

"So what are you doin' here?" He suddenly asked. Phil looked up from his mug. "What brought you out here?"

"What, I can't pay a visit to my own son?" Phil said jokingly, and Techno rolled his eyes.

"That's not what I'm sayin' and you know it." He tucked a strand of pink hair behind his pointed ear.

Phil sighed. "Yeah I know. Things are getting... bad over there, Techno. I don't want to be around them anymore. Tommy... Tommy's going through his own shit right now and as much as I want to be there for him, he blames me for the Wilbur's death. Rightfully so, of course, but I feel being around him would hurt him more than help. Plus, Wilbur hangs around Tommy more than not, and I... can't handle that. And so," He gestured to his son. "You're my last resort."

Techno smiled behind his mug. "So you're sayin' I'm your last choice? Brutal, dude."

Phil cracked a smile of his own and chuckled, taking another sip of his tea. "Of course not, Tech," He responded, and then his voice fell quiet. "You're just the only one of my sons who doesn't hate me right now."

Something in Techno broke when he heard that. He felt the same way, of course- everyone on the SMP despised him. He wouldn't be surprised if people tried to assassinate him at some point. But Phil was never conditioned to that sort of hatred. He was loved by all, and always had been. His kindness went miles and he made friends wherever he went. So to hear that people, let alone his own sons, hated Phil was jarring to Techno to say the least.

"Fair enough," Techno responded despite his thoughts. "Would you wanna stay here? I can build another bed, but that'll take a day or so."

Phil sighed tiredly, looking out into the snow through Techno's side window. Techno wondered what his father was thinking about. "You need to stop this, Techno."

Techno blinked at the sudden topic change. "What? What're you on about, dad?"

"This fighting, this war. It's neverending and unyeilding- sooner or later you'll die, and even if you have three lives to live, every death adds up. Don't you see, Techno? If you keep at this, you're going to die! I can't lose another fucking son! Please!" Phil had stood in his pleading, tears welling in his eyes. Techno blinked. He couldn't remember the last time Phil had cried, let alone in front of him.

"Dad..."

"I-" Phil stood straight and wiped his tears, looking to the side. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I guess I'm just tired or something from the journey. Can you find me somewhere to rest?"

Techno nodded and stood, pouring the last of his and Phil's out the window into the snow. He showed his father to his bed and after a quiet argument on who would sleep there, Phil finally acquiested to his son's stubbornness and agreed to sleep on the bed. Techno unrolled a futon from one of his closets for himself right next to the bed.

He walked around, blowing out all the candles. "It gets really cold after I douse the fire. Be ready to bundle up Dad." He heard a small hum in affirmation as he doused the fireplace and got into his futon, already feeling the cold seeping through the heavily insulated house.

After a couple moments of silence, he spoke.   
"Are you still awake?"

"Unfortunately."

Techno huffed a laugh. "Me too."

Silence once more. It permeated through the room, and the uncomfortable awkwardness that disapated after years of living together was back again in full force with the cold. Techno couldn't help but shiver.  
"I'm sorry," He whispered into the dark. If his father heard him, he said nothing. "I'm sorry for not bein' the son you expected. For leavin' and hurtin' everyone around me. For makin' you tend to my potato fields, which are prob'ly dyin' right now anyway. For hurtin' Tommy and Wilbur and everyone else. I don't deserve you all. I never have."

Phil was silent for just a moment, but long enough for Techno to suspect he had just gushed his feelings into the void.  
"You've got nothing to apologize for, mate. You're my son, and nothing could ever make me stop loving you."

And with that, Techno broke down. He sat up, his breath hitching with a sob. He heard Phil sitting up and shifting to get out of bed, but he didn't care. He wiped his tears roughly with the heels of his hands and choked out weak apologies, only to be muffled by Phil's shoulder as the older man hugged him.

"Shhh... It's okay, little one. Let it out. You're okay now. I'm here." 

"Dad..."

He sobbed until he physically couldn't anymore. Phil ran his hands through his sons hair, whispering reassurances into the thick pink strands, and Techno appreciated it. He felt more grounded with each passing moment, sighing and pushing Phil away with a sniff.

"Sorry about that," He said, his voice hoarse.

"You're okay."

He went back in to hug his father, not wanting to leave the warmth of the embrace. Silence hung over the two as they sat, Phil leaning against the bed with Techno half laying on and half hugging the other man. 

"What can I do to be a better son to you?" Techno asked quietly. It was a genuine question, one that he'd asked himself hundreds of time and was just now externalizing.

"You're already the perfect son."

"Please, just tell me."

Phil sighed, leaning his head back against the bed behind him. 

"Stay alive."

Techno's lips quirked into a small, genuine smile.

"Of course."

\---

After a few days, Phil decided to make his way back to New L'manburg. He needed to- he was part of the building efforts and this mini-vacation probably wasn't good for the construction. Techno gave him some food for the road and a weapon, as his father had come without.

"Wait here, I have somethin' for you," Techno said after handing his dad the bag of food.

"More? You just gave me like, eight potatoes, mate," Phil responded with a chuckle. Techno rolled his eyes and left all the same, coming back with a small leather satchel.

"Here," He said as Phil opened the satchel, taking out a couple emeralds. "You might need those if you're ever trading."

"And what's this?" His father asked as he put the emeralds back, something glowing with enchantment catching his eye. "A compass?"

"Should you ever need me, you'll know exactly where I am," Techno responded with a smile. Phil blinked a the small thing and looked back up at Techno, a warm grin on his face. He pulled Techno into a tight hug.

"Thank you, Techno," He whispered into his hybrid son's ear. Techno smiled.

"For you, Phil, the world."


End file.
